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Every emergency needs its Plan B
AS cities expand, peri-urban areas create special challenges for planners - as the Victorian bushfires have dramatically illustrated. TransScan’s June edition featured a special report on Black Saturday - including the statistic that up to half of Australia’s vegetation fires occur on the urban fringes. Below we look at the Black Saturday Royal Commission initial findings from a planning prospective.
Life returns to Victoria's burnt forests.
Photo by Keith Pakenham, CFA Public Affairs.
THE first recommendations flowing from Victoria’s Black Saturday Royal Commission show that if communities are going to withstand a new era of ever-fiercer bushfires then authorities will need to develop many more “Plan Bs”.
For example, next time a public building is planned for an area prone to bushfires, the Royal Commission wants consideration given to designing it to double as a community refuge in a bushfire emergency.
That was also one of the recommendations that came out of the Ash Wednesday enquiry back in the 1980s. More recently it is an idea that has been downplayed on the grounds that such refuges make people less self reliant and in an emergency more likely to risk leaving their threatened homes as late as possible.
But the Black Saturday Royal Commission makes it clear that the events of February which left 173 people dead and thousands homeless have marked a significant change in the way future bushfires may behave - and the way people caught up by such infernos respond. Among the 51 recommendations of its Interim Report, the Royal Commission presses for more refuges to be identified or built pointing out that the “current lack of refuges fails to provide for those who find themselves in danger when their plans fail, are overwhelmed by circumstances, change their minds, or have no plan.”
Among those recommendations directly effecting planning authorities are:
- That community refuges be identified and designated.
- That State and Federal Governments begin talks on the use of remote imagery to support bushfire suppression operations. (Note: In the light of the West Atlas oil spill off the WA coast, remote imagery discussions might usefully extend to include other large scale disasters.)
- That state wide wildfire areas be identified and that a new system of “township protection planning” be introduced to better determine the resources a community might need in an emergency.
The Interim Report says that Victoria’s lack of refuges also threatens those people who are away from their homes such as employees, visitors, tourists, travellers and campers. “Any option, which reduces the risk to people in these circumstances, warrants consideration by the State,” says the report.
The report does suggest that individuals should identify their own “safer places” where they can retreat to if a Plan B is needed. “These arrangements could include options like their own in-ground swimming pool or a neighbour’s ploughed paddock,” says the report.
Mention of private options prompted Victoria’s Building Commission to issue its own “community information sheet on bushfire bunkers”(3) saying that there is “no technical standard currently in place for bunkers”. The information sheet says there is “no conclusive research” on whether bunkers actually save lives and anyone considering building one needs to take into consideration not only its location and construction but whether “you and your family are psychologically ready to stay in the bunker during a fire.”
The bulk of the Royal Commission’s recommendations on matters affecting planning, building design and land use will be contained in its Final Report due to be published July 31 next year after a further 28 weeks of public hearing. Meanwhile the Interim Report is largely designed to influence bushfire management before the onset of the next bushfire season - and that includes initial steps to improve the refuge situation.
The Interim report says the Victorian Government is currently working to identify “neighbourhood safer places” and educate the public about their use before the next bushfire season begins.
The Interim Report has also given considerable emphasis to the need for better quality and more timely warnings and information about bushfires and found that during Black Saturday 80% of calls to the Victorian Bushfire Information Line went unanswered. The Interim Report is recommending a greatly improved telecommunication system, the re-introduction of warning sirens and an extension of official warnings onto commercial radio and TV.
Elsewhere TransScan has found developments overseas where significant advances are being made in emergency warning systems. German researchers are now advocating the sounding of remotely controlled car horns as an alternative to fixed location sirens; while in the US tests have begun on a new all-emergencies website that allows public participation and minute by minute updates.
